I was planning to write about Santorum, but Dan beat me to the punch. As a follow up, there is another post over at Attytood drawing attention to speculation that Santorum might be trying to lose the PA senate race to run for President in 2008.

So what's left to write about? Bob Casey, of course! The folks over at Attytood are also wondering if Santorum is trying to lose the race anyway, why not get a more progressive Democratic candidate than Casey?

Well, for starters, you're not going to find many candidates with better positions on most issues than him.

Click Read More to see the rest.

What's that you say? How can this guy, who is pro-life, be more liberal than most of the statewide Democrats in Pennsylvania? Some would argue that's just not possible!

Well, it might not be possible if the only issue you care about is abortion. However, if your political concerns are broader than that, Casey might be just the man for you.

Don't get me wrong. I'm as pro-choice as anyone. However, I get a little sick to my stomach when people claim that someone like Ed Rendell is liberal but Bob Casey is a caveman from the stone age. Frankly, on most issues that matter to me and other progressives, Casey is miles ahead of Rendell and most elected Democrats. Don't believe me? Let's hear what Casey himself has to say about the issues.

"As a national party, they were trying to increase our success by being more like the Republican Party," Casey said. "You might as well not have a Democratic Party." He said he was on opposite sides of national Democrats on a number of issues.

Casey disagreed with the Clinton administration's embrace of welfare reform and trade liberalization measures such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"I couldn't have voted for that," Casey said of the 1996 welfare overhaul, passed in the year he first ran for office. "You were saying, 'Let's make people more self-sufficient,' but you weren't giving them the tools to do that. ... A lot of Democrats nationally and in the state say, 'You're crazy. We should be able to move in that other direction,' but I just don't agree with them."

Agreements such as NAFTA, he said, have hurt Pennsylvania workers.

"I think on some of these national issues, I would be out of the Washington mainstream," he said recently.

As political heroes, he cites figures from his party's past. In addition to his father, who was governor from 1987 to 1995, he mentioned former President Harry S. Truman. He rarely gives a speech without offering a quote from former Vice President Hubert Humphrey on society's obligations to help those in the twilight and in the dawn of life.

It should be noted this article is from 2002, long before Howard Dean made it cool to hold these positions. This might be the first and only time Bob Casey has been ahead of the curve on upcoming trends. Well, I also heard he owned one of the first iPods, but that's another story.

So, now that I've established that I like Casey and most of his positions on the issues, I must say I'm a little concerned about how his campaign is responding to everything that is happening. You'll notice that many of the news stories about sanatorium quote State Rep. T.J. Rooney, who is the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. The strategy of the Casey campaign seems to be to attack sanatorium through surrogates like Rooney, instead of having Casey say anything directly to Senator Man-on-Dog. I think this is a mistake. People are looking for leadership. They want someone to stand up to Santorum and I think most Democrats would prefer the actual candidate do it. Casey shouldn't remain above the fray, he should jump right in! Remember, most people don't know who Casey is. Voters need to start thinking of him as the antidote to Santorum and they can't do that if he's hiding behind T.J. Rooney.